


Something (That You Forgot) Reborn

by nyanbacon



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Helmsman, Helmsman Sollux Captor, Hurt/Comfort, I lose track of plot halfway through too, M/M, Physical Therapy, but theres a lull, im so sorry, it ends up okay, post-rebellion, they're so ooc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-06 05:59:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 13,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14635533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyanbacon/pseuds/nyanbacon
Summary: You are a Helmsman. But there's something wrong with your coding, which gives you an extra component to cope with that you don't think other Helms have to deal with. Well, it's not important- not since the Rebellion is over, and you're getting a new commander. Except... he seems familiar...





	1. PROCESSOR: REMINISCE

For sweeps, you’ve known there’s something… wrong with you.

  
It’s all based on a hunch, of course. A hunch of what you should be, what you are supposed to be.

  
But even then, something has always felt… off.

  
And you are sure that is part of the problem.

  
You’d always heard stories, things lusii showed their wrigglers about the atrocities the helm could do to a psionic with books or other sources- fry their brain, decompose their bodies, turn them to nothing but piles of dust on the floor. It scared even the bravest of them, and you all would refuse to talk about such stories when you got together. (With who? You aren’t sure. You’ve never been able to identify faces, just events).

  
So when you’re dealt a faulty folder of code, clearly missing several components, you’re left to cope with things other psionics don’t have to. (A sense of grief washes over you whenever you dwell on the missing code too much, so you try not to think about it).

  
From a computer’s perspective, it isn’t that hard to understand- a few missing firewalls here and there seem to be the extent of the damage. You aren’t missing any major functioning files, so things run smoothly for the ship. You make no fuss about the missing firewalls, the workers make no fuss about your lack of proper coding. Sure, it makes errors common in the coding, but after spending as much time in the helm as you have (you’ve forgotten, and the calculations would be saddening), you’ve learned to cope with the messages and work around them efficiently.

  
Without the firewalls and extra security, though, there is... another perspective. A living perspective. A biological perspective.

  
It does a lot of things you believe to be unnecessary. They are unnecessary because there is no way for you- the computer- to process it. There is some part of you that does- some subconscious part of you that has always been able to identify an emotion from an ache, and an ache from something damaging your exterior- but it couldn’t ever translate the complex, alien feeling into basic binary so you understand it.

  
In the time you’d been learning to cooperate with this alternate perspective, you’ve developed a system. If it sends you an error, you reply with a series of yes or no questions, and they cycle through until a positive input returns. It silences the errors, and makes your work easier, keeping the problems in the background so you can stay focused on taxing tasks at hand.

  
It’s a nice system. Albeit complicated, and unnecessary for other psionics, it works for you, and that’s fine.

  
That’s not true. Usually it’s fine. There are moments when it acts up and creates problems that you have to take care of yourself, and you often find yourself wondering if you are the equivalent of a lusii to this untamed grub of an alternate mind.

  
Pain is nothing new to you. At least, the concept isn’t. You are, after all, a computer, and couldn’t feel it (You somehow remember being incapacitated for days from bad pains, usually from your head, that your lusus would soothe with something… sweet. You like sweet. You don’t like the memories, though. They’re distracting.) It’s not uncommon for a stray error to return as a positive for pain from the other mind. This happens so often you’ve gotten into the habit of ignoring it. There are outbursts, though. Violent outbursts.

  
The first one you have an entry for is the first time the ship had gone into hyperspace. The energy itself wasn’t a problem- obviously the biological counterpart was able to supply the power needed for such a jump, otherwise the psionic wouldn’t have been assigned to a ship that was programmed with the ability to make the jump. The problem was with the strain it put on the psionic.

  
Strain is not a concept you’re oblivious to either. It’s obvious when your processors are run thin in battle against pirates, or ships the Rebellion has scavenged. The strain the psionic feels was different, though. More painful.

  
The jump was a bit much for it, because errors started popping up- more than you could handle. The other mind was going haywire, flashing brightly under your censors in waves of panic after pain after panic. Suddenly, you too had become strained, trying to keep the coding anomaly under wraps while simultaneously making sure the ship was deposited to the right coordinates. Fortunately, things turned out okay.

  
For you, at least. You couldn’t say the same for the psionic, and the puddle of mustard blood that had appeared on the floor.

  
Disgusting.


	2. ????: DREAM

The sky was dark. You were pretty sure it was night, but it could’ve just been dark where you were. Your surroundings just happened to be dark. 

There was a troll in front of you. They were tall, much taller than yourself. They were wearing something… green. You weren’t sure what shade it was, but it was green. 

They led you to a room. You couldn’t make out any defining features of the room, though. You felt blind. There were two other trolls sitting in the middle of the room. One was very purple- violet, you believed. He was drenched in it. The other one was gray.

They liked you. You weren’t sure how you knew, but you felt… warm whenever you heard their voices- at least, you think it was their voices. They were blurred, you couldn't exactly hear what they were saying, or in the proper frequency, like it was all a dream. The gray one was… loud. Very loud. And the violet one… you were pretty sure he found you and the gray one annoying. But he still liked you. He made you feel warm, and… happy, you dare say.

You liked the feeling.

You miss the feeling.

 


	3. PROCESSOR: UPDATE ON CURRENT EVENTS

The Rebellion was over. It has been over for a few perigrees at this point. Your function, being a battleship, has been put on hiatus until commanders are adjusted. After consulting some files in your off time, when no one was running diagnostics on your (almost) perfect software, it comes to your attention that the Rebellion has been successful- the lowbloods had won.

What have they won? You… aren’t quite sure. You’re pretty sure it has something to do with freedom- caste freedom, or something of the like- but you don’t quite understand the concept.

You don’t understand freedom. 

It helps you in your knowledge of the transition to a new commander. He’s short. Loud. And he likes the color gray.

This sticks with you. You aren’t sure why. 

He’s very good at fitting in with the place. Well… that’s giving him a bit too much credit. He puts his own crew in charge of the ship, and they know how to function it quite well. You guess they’ve run a ship similar to yours before, or, at a minimum, know how to adapt. You hadn’t expected lowbloods to be able to figure things out so well, but you let this go on as necessary- they are, after all, your crew now. 

One of the most bothersome steps in this process, though, is when they decide to go in and edit your files. 

Your hard drive had been wiped when the old crew was removed, leaving the storage open and waiting for new crew files. Now that the crew is in- and files have been created for each of them- a programmer was in the room with the body, plugging away at the hardware and uploading files to your drive. There are a lot of them, you realize, as you watch the little loading bar fill, empty, restart with each file. 

As each file uploads, the programmer, much to your distaste, goes digging around in your software. You had put up a few basic firewalls, sure, because you weren’t expecting someone this skilled to have the effort and the desire to be as thorough as he was being. It’s making you paranoid, and the other subconscious is setting off alarms about it- as if it doesn’t want the programmer poking around this deep in the software either. 

This confuses you, but you push the feeling (feeling? What are feelings?) aside in favor of throwing obstacles at the programmer. Unfortunately, he’s good.

Too good.

Before you realize what is happening, he gets to where your firewalls are or, at least, where they’re supposed to be. He seems to see they’re missing, and frowns at the wall of coding that appears on his monitor. 

The subconscious is going nuts. 

Errors and alarms are popping up everywhere, as if its made its own firewall. Everything that could go off is going off and the programmer recognizes this, and seems to panic as much as it is. 

You try to fix the situation yourself. You believe that if you can pass it off as a bug, they’ll just do a surface diagnostic, or even simply repair the firewalls without panicking over the status of the helm. You don’t need them screwing around any more than they already have.

Before you can do anything, though, the programmer runs off down the hall, leaving the code to continue to scroll as the subconscious freaks out. You send a command shut it down and it… sort of works. Coding has never really worked against it, but it usually gets the message and shuts up, and that’s all you need right now. 

You adjust your attention away from the monitor to follow the troll in his path through the ship. He seems to know it as well as you do. This makes you uncomfortable.

He arrives in the bridge, and taps on the captain’s shoulder. “Karkat-”

“I’m fucking busy, Tintri.”

“Karkat, this is urgent.”

The captain groans and turns to face the taller troll with a scowl. “What level?”

His eyes are a bright flaming red, and this makes you stop. He has red blood- bright red blood, you know that much. Trolls get color in their eyes that correspond to their blood color when they mature. His are... Pretty. (forming opinions now?)

“It’s… I don’t know, we don’t have a protocol,” Tintri stammers. “You should just come see for yourself.”

Karkat bites his lip, his short fangs digging into his skin as he glances back at the crew manning the dashboard. They give him some sort of confirmation signal, and he turns and follows Tintri back through the halls. 

He seems to grow uncomfortable as Tintri approaches the Helm, but doesn’t show it. Tintri punches in the passcode to the keypad on the wall as he talks.

“I was just uploading the new crew files to the system, and the computer started freaking out. I think it might actually be-”

The doors open, after a command goes through your system, and Tintri is cut off by Karkat gasping sharply. The shorter troll covers his mouth with his hands, staring at the only thing in the room across from him in wide eyed horror.

“... Sollux?”

  
  



	4. ????: DREAM...?

You looked forward to the meetings with your… friends. They were inviting, and they always welcomed you when you showed up- you had a habit of coming late. The violet one was calmer, and seemed nicer than the gray one. He just shouted a lot, and made your head hurt. It was okay, though, because on days when you were in too much pain, he’d stop and quiet his voice. They worried about you when your headaches got real bad, and the Jadebloods said they asked about you constantly when you couldn’t come because of the migraines. 

Sometimes you couldn’t leave your hive because of the pain, and you had to miss out on the meetings. The transports still came, but the Jadebloods would leave you if you weren’t in shape to go, they would leave you alone for the night. You hated when they did that, but you couldn’t do anything about it.

Sometimes, you’d tough it out. You pretended to be okay so you could see them- just to be able to say hi, and maybe curl up in ED’s pile of capes. KK sometimes brought chocolate too, and it made you feel better. 

You miss that, too. 

  
  



	5. PROCESSOR: WATCH

You are a computer. You have always been a computer. 

So you’re confused when you feel something in your processors- you say processors because you don’t have another word for it. It hurts. It hurts a lot.

You aren’t sure what it is, but you don’t like it. The subconscious tells you… well it tells you a multitude of things, and you don’t like any of them. Grief, it suggests. Despair. Depression. Sadness.

Longing.

Hope.

You ignore it. Karkat is staring at you, and you can see those small pink tears welling in his eyes. You want to console him, pap him, tell him things are going to be okay.

But you can’t. And it’s driving you crazy.

Karkat doesn’t look at Tintri. “Contact Ampora.”

“He’s in a meeting-”

“Do I look like I care?!” He turns on the troll, borderline hysterical. “Tell him it’s a goddamn emergency, drag him from the room, I don’t fucking care! Just get him down here, now!”

Tintri bolts, and Karkat turns back to you- or, the body.

You, too, are now panicking.

You’re pretty sure that’s what it was called, anyway. That’s what the subconscious is saying. Or, doing. It’s having trouble processing, or doing any basic functions for that matter. It’s spiraling, you believe it is called, and you are not equipped with the proper coding or the proper understanding of psychology and troll behaviors to handle it.

So, you stare. You take in the captain, the new leader of your ship, the troll who is about to start crying over the nearly dead body. You don’t understand why. You have a feeling that you could figure it out if you could access your memory banks, but you would not only have to get past the spinning subconscious, but also the firewall. 

The memory banks have quite the impressive firewall. You are always impressed every time you butt up against it when trying to do your work. It’s the only firewall that remained from the original coding, and it’s the strongest of all the security you’ve managed to scrape together at this point. You’ve never tried to out-hack the memory bank firewall. It intimidates you.

But now, staring at this troll with painful recognition in his eyes, you wonder…

Would trying to break it be worth it?

You don’t get a chance to explore this question further, because Karkat’s communication device goes off. He sniffs, pulling himself together, and opens the call.

“Kar, what the glubbin’ hell was so important you had to-”

“Eridan, please.” Karkat’s tone is begging.

That doesn’t feel right.

“What’s goin’ on?” Eridan clearly picks up on the tone as well.

Karkat takes a slow, steadying breath, rubbing his face with his free hand. “You know the ship you appointed me to?”

“The battleship?”

“Uh huh.”

“Yeah. Best in the armada. It’s what you asked for-”

“No, no, the ship is fine. I mean…” Karkat looks at you again. You wonder if he knows you’re staring, watching. (trying to understand what the hell is going on.)

“Jus’ spit it out, Kar, I don’ have all night-”

“Sollux is in the helm.”

Silence. A heavy silence. You can feel it. You can’t feel anything, and you can feel it.

“What?” Eridan’s voice is small. 

“I-I’m in the helm of the ship, and I… goddammit, Eridan…” Karkat’s voice gets small, and suddenly he’s crying, and you’re about to lose it. 

Fortunately (or unfortunately, you aren’t sure), the subconscious beats you to it. 

The monitor flashes, and Karkat’s attention turns towards it. A single line of dialogue is visible on the screen.

 

‘Plea2e don’t cry’

 

Karkat stumbles backwards, eyes wide, and his hands go to his mouth again as he backs himself up against the wall. He sinks down into a sitting position, gaze flickering between the monitor and the body.

Bad move, you decide. You want to turn and strangle the subconscious (but you can’t because you’re just a fucking computer, and computers can’t HAVE homicidal urges).  

“Kar? What happened? What’s goin’ on?”

“I don’t-” He chokes. You hate it. The subconscious hates it. Eridan hates it. 

“Karkat-”

“Eridan, I think he’s conscious.”

  
  



	6. ????: NIGHTMARE

When you walked into the room, you knew it was going to be the last time. On the ride to the castle, the Jadebloods had been discussing in hushed voices that the Council was starting to get worried. They didn't like the fact Eridan was associating so closely with lowbloods, so they’d cancelled the program. 

Eridan and Karkat looked at you with immense sorrow on their faces when you arrived, and you ran forward to wrap them in tight, suffocating hugs. 

Karkat was the first to start crying. Pink tears rolled down his cheeks, no matter how much you or Eridan tried to stop them. Eridan’s ear fins drooped and eventually, he just hugged Karkat and gave up trying to console the smaller troll. 

You sat down on the pile of purple capes, staring at the floor. “So… I guess this is it.”

Karkat says nothing. Eridan stared at the floor as well.

“The Council made a decision?” You asked, looking at Eridan, who nodded numbly.

“They voted las’ night.” His warble makes your stomach flutter. “They decided keepin’ me near lowbloods was unhealthy for my mindset.”

“That’s fucking bullshit and they know it!” Karkat protested, gripping Eridan’s shirt in his little fists. “They just hate us.”

“Kar you know that’s not true.”

“And how do you know that?” You turned to look at the sea dweller, and he looked away. “They’re biased, and you know it.”

Karkat turned and pressed his face into Eridan’s chest. “I don’t want to be taken away.”

Eridan didn’t have anything to say to this. He lay back on the pile, holding Karkat to his chest and running his ringed fingers through the smaller’s hair. You lay down beside them, resting your forehead against the nape of Eridan’s neck and draping your arm over the both of them. You revelled in the feeling of the silk capes under you, and the texture of their skin under your hand. You even took in the sound of their voices, the smell of their clothes, anything that overwhelmed your senses with their presence. 

You left that morning with the crippling knowledge that you’d never see them again, and an empty quadrant that made your blood pumper ache. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for updating a couple hours late! My blood sugar crashed and I nearly fell asleep in sixth period because I hadn't eaten enough today, so I binge ate when I got home and then got a headache and crawled into bed, oops!   
> Summer break is rolling up soon, so hopefully my update schedule stays consistent.   
> Thank you all so much for your support! I'm hoping and praying what I have planned will meet your expectations.


	7. PROCESSOR: GIVE UP

Everything is a mess.

You aren’t sure how to compute it, so you don’t. You cycle a series of inputs, and leave it at that. You don’t analyze it, run it through a processor- you sure as hell don’t let the subconscious see it, or understand it, or panic. You just… let it happen. 

Eridan and Karkat don’t leave the Helm. They eat, sleep- practically live in the room with you. You aren’t sure whether to feel comforted or the opposite. But that doesn’t matter. Why would it? No one cares.

They talk with an engineer a lot- over Trollian, or through phone calls, or something. He tells them to do things to the body, or your biowires. You feel violated. But no one cares. Why would they?

You start shocking them when they get too close, when they get too personal. You don’t like them touching you like this. That’s the one thing you can tell through the inputs and outputs.

You don’t like any of it.

And this…

This makes you upset.

Up until this point, you’d never experienced being truly upset. That is something the subconscious did, and even then you can’t recall a time where it truly got upset.

Now, thought, you’re upset.

You stare, you watch, you accept inputs, and the only output is that you don’t like what they’re doing. You’re scared, you’re sad, you’re… upset. 

And you leave it at that. 

  
  



	8. ????: REMEMBER

You were coding when you heard it.

It wasn’t loud at first- just a few small knocks on your door, but you were thrown into a panic. You didn’t get visitors often- the only ones being the Jadebloods, who weren’t to come for you anymore. And you didn’t have any friends outside of Karkat and Eridan, so that left only one option.

Cullers.

You had an escape plan ready- always did- but you didn’t know it off the top of your head. In this adrenaline rush, who would? 

On top of the noise of your door being knocked down, your lusus was starting to get distressed, and made noises from the upper levels of your hive. You couldn’t deal with that now, though.

He’d be dead in a little bit anyway.

You grabbed your husktop, and a small emergency bag you had packed. You heard the cullers coming up the stairs, so you turned and broke the glass to one of your windows with your bag. You threw the two objects out the window and moved to climb out after them-

Before something grabbed your arm.

You yelped in panic, grabbing the broken glass that still remained embedded into the window with your free hand. You writhed, wriggled, tried to get away from the trolls that were much larger than your smaller, four-sweep-old body. You were about to lose grip on your emotions, and your sets of horns sparked dangerously as you tried to pull away. 

When this didn’t deter them, you turned to look at them with wide eyes. Usually, sparking your horns was enough of a sign of intimidation to get trolls to back off. But this… this was different. The cullers were prepared for that, and that scared you- much more than the sound of your lusus stomping around upstairs, or the sound of your door breaking down earlier. 

Images of what you’d imagined the helm to look like flashed in your head, and this just fueled the growing panic welling in your chest. You shouted, on the verge of tears, as they dragged you out of your room. Your lusus responded and suddenly you wanted nothing more than to run to it and hide. You were afraid- horribly afraid.

They forced you down the stairs of your hive, and tears were cascading down your cheeks. Your eyes burned. Much more than what was expected for crying. 

You were halfway to the door when it happened. The burning became too much, and you doubled over, gripping your head in your hands and sobbing as pain engulfed you. Tremors combed your body and the cullers stepped back as you exploded. 

The pressure built up behind your eyes before it was suddenly released in a violent wave of psionics, shooting into the sky as you tossed your head back with a scream. The roof crumbled, and the trolls standing in the entryway were sprayed with the mustard blood of your lusus, whose body toppled down to the floor with a loud thud. You fell to your knees as the laser died down, and you resumed sobbing as the pressure left, leaving you empty, and tired. 

You collapsed onto the floor and cried. Someone picked you up gingerly, with light touches that felt comforting, and you leaned into them. They felt like your lusus, and it was soothing.

You can’t remember the last time you felt a comforting touch like that.


	9. SUBCONSCIOUS: EJECT

You first notice something is wrong when you feel pain coming from your body. You try to tell the processor something is wrong, but it’s been blocking signals to and from you, so it doesn’t notice. 

You start to panic. Something is wrong, you can tell, and the processor won’t listen to you when you try to notify it that something is wrong. The processor won’t let you see what’s going on, so all you can do is send flare after flare of errors at it. 

Eventually, the processor responds, but only after it’s too late.

With the connection barrier broken, you’re able to tell what’s going on- Karkat and Eridan, under Equius’s guidance, are cutting your biowires. And this just makes your panicking worse.

There is some level of stability you know the processor has always provided you- it does all the processing, all the computing, all the analyzing, all you do is offer inputs from the outside. You can’t function without the processor.

So with every biowire cut, you lose more and more of your ability to function. 

The first thing you lose is your ability to see what’s going on, and this sends you into a tizzy. You can’t tell what’s going on, you can’t take in inputs- the only inputs you can take in is the sudden waves of pain coming from your body. 

With every new spark of pain, you lose a bit of your hold on the processing unit. You stop being able to receive outputs, no matter how many inputs you’re sending and how hard you’re trying to access outputs. You can feel the processor trying to hold on, even though it always communicates how it doesn’t need you. It holds onto your edges in the fraying connection.

You lose more and more of your ability to process what’s going on, and suddenly, you don’t know where you are, you don’t know what’s happening, and you can feel the last of… of whatever that thing is slipping from your grasp. Why were you holding onto it?

Why is there so much pain?

What’s going on?

You feel yourself fall out of whatever was holding you, and you’re aware of something catching you. You can’t… you can’t feel their presence once they have, but you judge by the jolt and the faint warmth you feel for a moment that someone caught you. 

They lay you down somewhere, and figures dance in your vision. You can’t register anything. All you can see is light, and people. 

And you just want to sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgot to update yesterday, so I was going to initially do a double update, but since the chapters weren't very good if they weren't uploaded together, I'm just getting three chapters uploaded and out of the way, and I'm skipping an update tomorrow.   
> Believe me, it's probably better that I give you these chapters together.


	10. SOLLUX...?: DREAM

Four sweeps.

That’s the term that was being tossed around a lot. You knew it was your age, but you weren’t sure why it was significant.

You were being held on a ship. It was a big ship, and you were scared. They put these cuffs on your horns that irritated your scalp and horns, and they caused a migraine that throbbed constantly behind your eyes. You believed it was partially because it was keeping your psionics inside your head, but it also could have been just from the weight on your horns. 

You sat in wait, listening to the conversations the captain and crew had with engineers and other workers. A sick feeling had settled in the pit of your stomach by this point- whether it was from being hungry, or nervous and afraid, you weren’t sure. Maybe a combination of both. 

They kept talking about your age, incredulously. You knew your psionics had developed fast, which was why you were so bent on staying hidden and under wraps when the Jadebloods stopped getting you for the meetings with Karkat and Eridan. Now they had found you, though, and there was no way to go back. 

You thought a lot about Karkat and Eridan in the few hours you had before you were installed and uploaded. You remembered a lot of the touches. Karkat loved to cling to people, and treated them like a lifeline. His small hands were always clinging to someone’s clothing, and sometimes it annoyed you, but it was comforting to feel his low blood warmth seep into your skin. Sometimes it was hot- which confused you, because you weren’t sure a rust blood was supposed to get that warm- but it was comforting, and you liked it. 

Eridan wasn’t as touchy-feely, but he was always willing to show affection if you needed it. He was always more cuddly on days you had a migraine. He’d run his cool hands over your face, along your temples, rub your neck, hold you, wrap you up in his cape and promise everything would be okay. 

You missed that a lot.

You tried to remember what their touch felt like. Karkat’s hands were small, and he had claws he refused to cut, but he was warm, reassuring. He was a mass that was always attached to someone’s side and never let go- a universal constant. You liked that.

Eridan’s skin was smooth and soft, like the silk his capes were made of, and his touches were light and loving. It was easy to tell he’d been raised by Jadebloods. 

You were jerked out of your reverie by an engineer grabbing your arm harshly and injecting something into arm. You cried out in pain and tried to pull away, but he jerked you closer to him and you fell silent, whimpering.

Whatever he injected into your bloodstream worked fast, and your eyes drooped tiredly in mere moments. You were faintly aware of him picking you up and carrying you through the ship, but by the time you’d arrived at your destination, you were asleep.

You didn’t remember anything when you woke up again. 


	11. SOLLUX: WAKE UP

The only thing you can see when you wake up is a bright fluorescent green contrasting against the typical darkness that hovers behind your eyelids. You feel like you’re supposed to know what it is, but you can’t remember. 

You can’t remember anything.

This jerks something inside of you awake and you gasp- you can feel yourself gasp in your chest, because your lungs seem to creak in your ribcage, like it’s the first good breath you’ve taken in perigrees. You can’t feel your arms or legs. You know you’re supposed to- that seems like something that you would usually have control over, right?- but you can’t move them, the only thing you can move is your lungs and-

Your eyes. Your eyelids are heavy, but you can open them a crack, and when you do, all you see is darkness.

This sends another wave of panic over your crippled body, but you aren’t sure why- it’s supposed to be dark, right? At least, you thought it was supposed to be dark.

You’re aware of your lungs working in overdrive in your chest. You can’t hear the frantic breaths you’re taking, but your lungs and throat are starting to burn and you can’t calm down and your eyes are hurting from keeping them open for this long and-

Something rests against your face and you shudder violently. You sink lower into whatever the fluorescent green substance is and try to focus on what’s standing above you. Your eyes are lazy, though, tired, and you can’t see anything in your line of vision. You close them, sighing softly. Whatever is touching your face doesn’t leave, and you turn and lean your face against it. It’s warm, and something red and gray flashes across your vision, and you can hear someone yelling in your ears, but it’s washed out and quickly fades off into soft ringing, like waves of the ocean washing away sand on a beach. So you pay it no heed. 

It moves and strokes your hair before leaving, but you’re far too tired to call out for it to come back- not that you can. So you sag into the green, and drift off again.


	12. SOLLUX: BE CONSCIOUS

The next time you wake up is a bit different. The first thing you’re aware of is that you still can’t feel your limbs, which makes you uncomfortable because you’re pretty sure you’re supposed to be able to feel those. This worry is swamped by the realization you’re no longer in the green substance, which, strangely, also felt… right. 

You think you rotate your head, but you can’t be sure, because you can’t feel any movement.  You can’t feel much of anything. The only movement you know you can do is open your eyes, and you force your eyes open again, only to be met with a bright, blinding light. You make a strange noise in your throat in response and try to block it out, but closing your eyes doesn’t appear to be effective against it. 

You can hear things, and they’re clearer than last time. Instead of trying to open your eyes again, you lay still and listen to the voices around you dip in and out of audibility.

“… wake… don’t do… can’t…”

The loudest of the voices sounds familiar, but you can’t place it. Something inside you wants to instinctively move towards it, the way a grub would move towards its lusus. You try, but you can’t feel your limbs, and it’s starting to upset you. Something burns in the back of your eyes, and your throat hurts, and you can feel something trace its way down your cheek.

A whimper forces it’s way out from between your pointed teeth and you try and shift towards the source of the noise searchingly. The voice reaches out and runs along your face, wiping at the marks your eyes left on your cheeks, and it hums softly.

“Hey, you’re okay, Sollux, don’t cry…”

Sollux… that sounds familiar, too. Everything about this feels familiar, but you can’t put a finger on it. This doesn’t fix the emotions you’re having welling up in your chest, and everything you can feel starts to hurt. So you cry.

The voice doesn’t leave. It caresses your face, shooshes you, tells you everything is going to be okay, even though there’s something convincing you nothing is going to be okay. 

At one point, the voice touches the sides of your face and you open your eyes, afraid but comforted. A blurry figure stands in your vision, and you blink several times to try and clear it. You can see… a messy mop of hair, and bright red eyes, filled with worry, and small nubby horns on top of his head. 

You take a slow, shaky breath. “KK…” you whisper, voice rough and raspy, but audible to the troll standing in front of you.

He smiles and presses his warmth against your front. His face disappears and you can feel it press firmly into the side of your next. “Yeah, it’s me….”

You smile tiredly, the tears in your eyes blurring your vision further. He hiccups against you, gripping your skinny body tightly in his arms, but not tight enough to suffocate you. 

“I missed you,” Karkat chokes, digging his nails into your back.

“… m’ssed you too…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeahhh my upload schedule got kinda fucked. Oh well. I still have the chapters, it's just a matter of uploading them at the right time. Hopefully after Phoenix Comicfest is over, I'll be able to get back at uploading in the afternoon, but with me being gone all day, uploading in the morning is currently the best timing for me.   
> But hey! Summer!


	13. SOLLUX: START TO HEAL

The process is long and tedious, and frustrates you repeatedly.

The first thing Karkat wants you to do is eat. Speaking small phrases and words is already hard enough, but he insists that they need to get you off nutrient systems and back to taking in protein and such on your own. You can’t even sit up on your own, or move your arms- you insist upon this repetitively- so in the beginning, he helps turn your food into a semi-liquid substance so that you can swallow it without much chewing.

The first thing you eat is a cluckbeast broth, according to Karkat. You can’t smell it when he firsts brings it in in the bowl. He sets it down on the metal tray next to your bed, and you rotate your head just enough to look at the yellowish broth. It’s not mustard yellow, like your blood (bright images of blue and red and yellow flash across your vision for a moment, but not long enough for you to react), but instead a brighter yellow 

Karkat sits on the edge of your bed, and you watch as he picks up the bowl and a spoon. He spoons some of the broth into your mouth for you, since your arms are still immobile (and for an undecided amount of time, they will stay that way).

The flavor is indescribable. You can’t remember the last time you’d eaten something like a proper troll, but when the broth hits your tongue, you’re overwhelmed by the flavor. You can’t put words to it, but you love it, and swallow it after taking several moments to savor it. There must’ve been a look on your face- of what emotion, you aren’t sure- because Karkat chuckles and says you look dumb. You snort, and he continue to feeds you the broth until the bowl is empty, and you’re about to fall asleep. 

“Sleep well, Sollux,” he murmurs softly before kissing your forehead. For a moment, your brain activity spikes, because you think that was a little too red for what you thought was a simple moiraillgence, but Karkat is gone, and you can’t ask questions, so you leave it be and drift off into a dreamless slumber.

* * *

 

The next task Karkat asks you to tackle is moving your limbs- arms, legs, neck, everything- and this makes you nervous. It starts in the bottom of your stomach and you ignore it for the first bit of the exercises. Karkat helps you bend your arm so you can try and remember the movement, but when you realize you still can’t feel his touches or the movement, you panic a bit. The sick feeling in your stomach swells until small whimpers are coming out of your throat, and Karkat stops.

“Am I hurting you?”

You say nothing at first, simply try to breathe past the feeling in your stomach. “Can’t feel it.”

“You… can’t feel it?”

You shake your head. “Can’t feel my arm.”

Karkat looks alarmed, and shocked, and he frowns, and you look away. You can’t bear to look at him- not when he’s looking at you in what could almost be fear for your well being. 

“Hey.” He reaches out and touches your cheek so he can turn your face towards him. “We’re gonna figure this out, okay?” 

You glance down, and you can see that he’s laced your fingers with his, and he’s holding your hand. You can tell he’s gripping it with everything he has, and… and you can just barely feel it. You sniff, holding back tears, and nod. “Promise?”

Your fingers twitch lightly against his hand, and he smiles.

“Promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...  
>  I should've just continued posting in the morning.   
> I'm not doing a double update to make up for yesterday because I'm starting to run short on chapters and I need time to get ahead again.


	14. SOLLUX: LISTEN

Sometimes, others come into your room when you’re awake. You don’t like them as much as you like Karkat’s company, mostly because they talk about things you don’t understand.

“He lost a lot of development in the helm,” one of them- a blueblood- explains to Karkat. 

“What the fuck do you mean?”

The blueblood tenses at the language, but doesn’t say anything about it. “Without the mental stimulation he was supposed to get for the sweeps he was in the helm, he fell out of practice with any development his brain had made in the four sweeps he was out of the helm.”

“So…”

“So anything that developed when he knew you has been undone.”

Karkat looks at you, and you frown, because you don’t like the look he’s giving you.

“But he remembers me.” Karkat looks back at the blueblood.

“You must’ve meant a lot to him for those connections to revive themselves so quickly.”

Karkat looks at you again, and you stare at him blankly, unsure of the implication he seems to be assuming. You feel like you’re supposed to know- like you knew at some point- but the information is gone. 

“So do you know if… if it’s possible to fix his brain so he can move his arms?”

“It’s… possible. But it’ll take time.”

“We have all the fucking time in the world. Time isn’t the problem. I want to know if it’s possible, and if it’s safe.”

“Possible? Yes. Safe…” He trails off, and Karkat stiffens.

“Fucking…” The smaller glances at you again, before looking at the blueblood. “Go figure out how to do it, and get back to me.”

The blueblood nods and leaves, brushing past a seadweller who was approaching the door when he left. His gaze follows the blueblood before he opens the door and walks over to stand next to Karkat. He gives you a look, and you can recognize this one- pity. It makes you crinkle your nose. 

“How’s he doing?” He asks Karkat in a hushed voice. It’s hard to understand what he says past his warble, but the more he talks, the easier it gets.

“He can’t feel his arms.”

You watch as the seadwellers fins press against the side of his face, and he turns to look at you again past his glasses.

Karkat nudges him with his elbow. “You should go talk to him.”

He looks at the shorter incredulously. “But-”

“He’s not illiterate, Eridan.”

Eridan….

“If anything, he just needs help with moving. His communication skills are fine.”

“Not the last time I heard.”

“Would you just-” Karkat shoves Eridan closer, and the seadweller stumbles, hesitates, before slowly walking over.

He sits down on the bed beside you, and you stare at him. He’s wearing a lot of rings, and a few necklaces- all a bright, shimmering gold. A small brooch colored an electric blue holds a long purple cape around his shoulders. He twists one of his rings nervously, and doesn't say something for a long time.

“... Hey, Sol…” He finally murmurs, avoiding making eye contact and instead finding the bedsheets more interesting. 

You glance up, looking over his chiseled face and the bright purple streak in his hair, before looking back at the brooch. “Blue.”

He blinks, seemingly surprised at you saying something, and looks down at the brooch. “Oh..” He smiles, but it’s sad.

You look at the smile, and then at his eyes, which still won’t look you in the face. “‘s very pretty.”

“Yes it is…” He murmurs. 

You tilt your head to the left. “Why so sad, then?”

He reaches up and traces his ringed fingers over the smooth surface of the rock embedded in the golden brooch. “It’s the closest color I could find to your eyes.”

This… stirs something within you. You can’t quite place it, because it’s deep and new and still only subtle, buried under all the emotions weighing heavy in your chest. It makes your throat tight, and you don’t particularly like it.

You let out a short breath through your nose, trying to push the tightness back down into your chest or stomach, so it doesn’t hurt as bad. “Dork.”

“Wha- Sol!” Eridan cries, leaning back and placing a hand over his heart in an offended manner. “I thought it was a touching gesture!”

You giggle, and it feels good. It loosens up your chest, and while the ache doesn’t go away, the smile it leaves on your lips is pleasant, so you let it stay as Eridan pouts.

Just like the dork he is. 


	15. SOLLUX: SUFFER

You aren’t pleased by the next course of action. You’re aroused one evening to find some nurses lifting you into a wheelchair. You’re hesitant to protest, because you know Karkat wouldn’t commit to anything that would hurt you, but it makes you nervous. The hallways they take you down are unfamiliar, and there’s no stirring of emotions in your stomach that you’ve come to think of as subconscious familiarity. 

The room you come into is dark, and there’s a bed in the middle not unlike your previous one. You’re lifted onto the bed, and you can feel your face twist into a look of guilt. You hate this dependence you’ve formed. It feels… wrong to you- to who you’re supposed to be.

This feeling is set aside when the blueblood from the days before walks up to the side of the bed. You turn your head to see him, and any muscles you can move tense up when he places something over your horns and around your forehead. You can’t see it, but it feels…

It feels like…

He sticks a plastic piece in your mouth and you bite down on it, glaring at him. You try to mask the fact that you’re oh so afraid right now, and it seems to work, because he simply scoffs at the look you’re giving him and turns to a machine. He turns a few dials before flicking a switch.

The feeling in your head is hell.

It feels like you’re on fire, but you’re cold at the same time. Bright lights dance in your vision, and you scream. You can hear it, shrill and piercing in your ears, and it hurts- it hurts everywhere. For a moment you swear you can feel your fingertips, because they feel like they’re burning to a crisp. Your throat is going raw, the screaming drifting off to a deafening ringing in your ears. Your muscles tense, then relax, then tense again, you aren’t sure what’s happening- all your senses are on overload, and this feels so familiar, you can taste electrical burning on your tongue. 

You can feel your power building up and yet leaking out of you at the same time, doing twisted things to your body, to your mind, you can see binary flashing across your vision, screaming errors at you, you can feel the long tendrils keeping you connected to the processor- but the processor is gone, and without it you-you-

Something touches your horns, and a shock goes through your body, starting in your toes and trailing up your skin with lightning speed, up to where the contact was for a mere second. You see a bright flashing of red and blue, and the ringing becomes unbearably loud, and there’s pain, pain all along your face and head and you can feel your side come in contact with something sharp, and hard, and there’s yelling, so so much yelling, and-

You just want to sleep.


	16. SOLLUX: ASK AND BE TOLD

You awake on your side, staring at Karkat through blurred vision as he yells at the blueblood. You can’t make out what he’s saying, but that’s okay. You’re not sure you want to hear. Eridan’s running his fingers through your hair delicately, and you can feel his nails scraping against your skin (the nurses said this was an improvement, so the feeling is rewarding. It makes your chest feel light.)

The right side of your face hurts. There’s something cold pressing against it, and for a moment, while focusing on the feeling, you come to the conclusion you’d burned the side of your face. You can remember flashes, and pain, but you can’t pick anything coherent out of the mess of images in your head.

Except…

You attempt to roll onto your back, and Eridan adjusts you as you look up at him, blinking the groggy blurriness from your eyes so you can glance over the freckles dusted across his cheeks. He looks back at you with his deep, violet eyes, and continues to card his fingers through your hair, careful to avoid your horns. 

“Remember something,” you rasp- your throat is still raw from the screaming that still echoes in your ears. The background noise from inside your head has dwindled, though, and you can faintly hear Karkat yelling in the background. 

“Oh?” His voice sounds sad, and his hand slows, and you press your head against his palm to make him continue. 

“Numbers,” you state, before pausing and furrowing your brow. The more you try to hold onto the memory, the more of it is slipping away. “And… another part. Helped me, and my thoughts.” You want to say you miss it, but you don’t want to make Eridan jealous- you feel like that’s something that happens often.

Eridan pauses in stroking your hair, and instead covers your ears. This silences the outside world, or at least mutes it, and you close your eyes, unsure as to why he’s doing it, but finding it calming. 

When he takes his hands away and you open your eyes, Karkat and the blueblood are standing above you. Karkat looks pale, and his expression makes you feel sick. The blueblood is running his fingers over your arms, almost curiously. You twist your body to try and pull away.

“Move your finger,” the blueblood commands, looking at you with an emotionless face.

You glower at him, and don’t bother trying. “Can’t.”

“Would you please put some effort into it, lowblood.” 

You scowl, but try to put in effort to move something that doesn’t feel like it’s there.

And for a split second, you can feel it- you can feel your finger twitch and the energy travel along the nerves, making your arm tingle. But the feeling fades as soon as it was there and you stare at your still hand. 

“It worked,” the blueblood states simply, as if it wasn’t obvious.

“I can see that it fucking worked, Equius, that doesn’t mean I want you doing it again!”

“You were the one that agreed to it. I merely followed your orders.”

“Get out of here.” Karkat shoos him out of the room and shuts the door after him quickly.

“So…” Eridan starts hesitantly, and you look up at the ceiling. “Do we tell him?”

Karkat walks over, and you feel the bed sink on the same side he’d been standing at previously. You don’t look at him. 

“Should we?”

“Tell me what?” You demand, and for a long, uncomfortable moment, the room is the most silent it’s ever been. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the story has seemed to take a bit of a free-write path, bUT I HAVE A PLOT, I SWEAR! I'm still working out the last few chapters, but I'm almost done typing it and then it should be a smooth update schedule.   
> I just hope you all hold out until the end...


	17. SOLLUX: REMEMBER AND HATE IT

You can feel tremors card through and ravage your body as you lay on your side on the bed. Karkat and Eridan had been ushered away by workers telling them it was time for their next meeting with some ambassadors.

Before they left, they told you… everything. They told you that five sweeps ago, you were taken from your home and put into the helm- when you were four sweeps old.

And suddenly, you’re seeing the bright red-blue flashing of your psionics, the mustard blood of your lusus dripping from your ceiling as you scream yourself mute in physical and emotional agony. Then, you’re numb, sitting alone in a ship, waiting for someone to take you and strip whatever bit of troll was still a part of you. 

And then they do, and you can feel your old self, and the way he was lost and confused. He was in the dark, he didn’t remember anything- he had no name, nothing to claim as his own…

But yet, he’s not the computer. You. Are not the computer. You are you. The computer was just an added component- an added component you didn’t fucking need.

The tremors get worse and you twitch your fingers, focusing on what little you can feel from them instead of the hot, blinding rage building up behind your horns. You can’t be mad- you aren’t supposed to be mad- they were just following protocol-

But why you? Why did they have to ruin your life, your quadrants, your head?

They screwed with your thinkpan, and now you’re paralyzed, and you can’t do anything by yourself, you feel helpless. You can’t do anything to help yourself, and it feels wrong. It feels so wrong.

You open your mouth and gasp for air, because your throat and chest feels tight and you can’t breath. The sound that comes out is animalistic and it scares you, because that’s not what a sob is supposed to sound like- it’s ugly and horrible, and you feel shameful for making such an ugly sound. But they don’t stop, and they grow in number, and suddenly you’re shaking harder than before and you can’t take a deep breath without feeling the emotion well in your lungs. 

You stop being able to register the thoughts that are making your chest explode with pain, but you let it happen- there’s no point in trying to trace the thoughts back to a coherent origin. You tuck the back of your head up against your pillow, holding your chin against your chest. You want to cover your face with your hands, hide away from the shame and pain, but you can’t.

So you twitch your finger, and cry yourself to sleep, only managing to drift off when the ache goes away and you’re left feeling empty and tired, and wishing someone were there to hold you and tell you things would be okay.

Even if it was a lie. 


	18. SOLLUX: GET MAD

When you wake up, you request to see Eridan and Karkat. 

Immediately.

Eridan quickly returns to your side, and you can do nothing but glower at the doorway as he does so. He doesn’t seem to notice, instead taking your limp hand in his own. Karkat does notice the look as he walks in (you’d certainly hope so, considering it was aimed at him), and stares at you.

“Something wrong, Captor?” He asks obliviously, unsure as to what you’re planning, or why you appear so upset. 

“Yes, actually,” you state plainly, sitting up a bit despite the sore pain in your back that makes you want to slouch. “I want you to stop making my medical decisions for me.”

Karkat pales, and Eridan stiffens, and you ignore both of these reactions.

“It would be even better if you stay out of the situation entirely,” you continue, trying to keep your voice from shaking.

It must be effective, because Karkat’s horrified look quickly turns into a glare. “What the fuck are you saying? That you want me to just-just leave? And let you handle this yourself?”

You feign consideration. “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

Karkat sputters, scrabbling for something- anything- to say to stop this course of action. “But why?”

“You gave the go ahead for the shock therapy,” you state, that raw, unbridled anger bubbling in your stomach again. It twists and churns and you almost want to turn back, but you don’t. “You did it without thinking what it could do to me.”

“I had your best fucking interests at heart, asshole!” Karkat shrieks. “How were we supposed to know that it would elicit that violent of a reaction?”

“Equius did warn that-”

“Stay out of this, Ampora,” Karkat snaps, seething. “You don’t get a say in the matter.”

“And why the hell not?” You accuse. “I was going to hand the responsibility of my care over to him.”

“He approved of the treatment too!” Karkat yells, gesturing to the seadweller erratically. 

You turn to Eridan, and there must be a fire burning in your eyes because the fearful look he gives you makes the sick feeling in your stomach worse. His fins flatten against the side of his head and he backs off the bed, raising his hands in surrender as he stands up. “I didn’ think it’d hurt ya…”

“Neither did I,” Karkat adds, still trying to defend his position.

“But Equius did,” you start, and they look away, because they can then anticipate the accusatory, “and you didn’t listen.”

“... No,” Eridan finally says, and the sick feeling explodes, filling your body with tingling rage. “We thought it was the best decision for you.”

“Well it obviously fucking wasn’t!” You screech, and a burning sensation starts at the base of your horns, and you lean forward, trying to escape the angry tingling feeling trailing up your spine. “All you fucking care about is results! All you could do is think about the fact that the therapy might make my fingers twitch! Not the fact I burned the side of my goddamned face!”

“We do care about that, Sol!” Eridan counters, but you lean forward and squeeze your eyes shut because the tingling in your skin and the pain building up behind your horns is growing unbearable.

“Sollux-” Karkat starts, voice soft, and the way he sounds like he wants to pull you into his arms and coddle you breaks something inside of you, and the pain in your horns explodes out with a deafening crackle of electricity in the air. You’re aware of a crash, and you jerk your head up to see that you’ve thrown Karkat through one of the window walls opposite the room. Glass is still falling from the top, shattering as it hits the floor, and Karkat is curled up on the floor in the hallway, shaking.

The tingling and burning leaves in one whoosh of a breath, and you’re left quivering on the bed, staring wide eyed at the damage your anger has caused.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have all the chapters written out, it's just a matter of posting one every day. I'm posting them early my time now, since it'll be easier for me to remember that way.


	19. KARKAT: GET REALLY REALLY UPSET

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE READ!  
> This marks the beginning of part two of the story.  
> Part two is marked by the beginning of perspective changes. They’ll be in the title, so it won’t be hard to tell. There are two reasons I did this  
> Time skips are much harder to write if written in one perspective with small bursts of narration.   
> I have things planned which are better conveyed through Karkat and Eridan’s perspective.   
> Without further ado, please enjoy part two of the story.

Getting all the glass out of your skin is a tedious and painful process, and you sit there silently for a majority of it. Eridan is using tweezers to pry the shards out from your hands, and you can’t bring yourself to look at the bright red blood you know is leaking out of your skin and onto the sheets of the bed you’re sitting on. 

“Maybe we should’a listened to Equius,” Eridan says after a while, voice low, and you know it’s because he doesn’t want you to have heard, but you definitely heard and now he can’t get away from the tirade that comes up your throat (along with the feeling of wanting to throw up because of how fucking guilty you feel). 

“That fucker wouldn’t have suggested the therapy if he’d known it would’ve done so much physical fucking damage that Captor would react emotionally, too. He might have given some forewarnings, sure, but- ow!” 

Eridan digs his nails into your arm and you can feel his rings through your clothes. “You moved your arm,” he states plainly. 

You scowl at him, but he ignores it- he’s gotten good at that over the sweeps.

“I think that Equius thought he knew what he was getting into.” Eridan places a glass shard in a pan. “And things turned out a lot differently than expected.”

“How the fuck would that have happened?”

Eridan straightens and looks at you levelly, and you’re intimidated by the look in his eye. “He’s… the most powerful psionic in our records, Kar-”

“You’re talking about him like he’s a piece of goddamn equipment-”

“He was!” He growls. “For a while, yeah! To the former Empire, he was jus’ a piece of equipment. And he was the strongest piece’a equipment they had. Equius didn’t know how to calibrate around that.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I would lay goddamn money on it,” Eridan bets, before letting out a sigh as his earfins droop. “As much as you wanna place the blame on someone else, this was our fault Kar.”

“... you don’t think I know that?” You whisper. Your throat is tight, and tears are welling in your eyes, and you stare down at the bed, avoiding looking at Eridan.

“Kar-”

“I know this is my fault!” You screech, before gasping for air, clawing at your sweater, and a sob forces its way up your throat.

Eridan rushes forward and wraps his arms around you, and you press your face into his shoulder, taking in his scent (he smells a bit like lavender, and it’s calming), and you sob. They’re ugly, ugly noises, but you’re beyond being able to stop it at this point. He rubs his hand across your back soothingly as you cry into his shoulder. 

“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” you whisper. 

“I know,” he murmurs, adjusting his hold on you so he can place his hand on your cheek, and rub the pink tears from your skin.

“I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE READ!  
> This marks the beginning of part two of the story.  
> Part two is marked by the beginning of perspective changes. They’ll be in the title, so it won’t be hard to tell. There are two reasons I did this  
> Time skips are much harder to write if written in one perspective with small bursts of narration.   
> I have things planned which are better conveyed through Karkat and Eridan’s perspective.   
> Without further ado, please enjoy part two of the story.


	20. ERIDAN: DEAL WITH KARKAT

Karkat takes the ordeal much harder than you do, and it becomes evident in his daily actions. He’ll eat less than he used to- you can’t even get him to eat chocolate anymore- and he sleeps all the time. All the meetings are on your plate now- he doesn’t even show up to half of them. 

You find yourself dwelling on these thoughts as you sit alone in a dining hall, poking a spoon at some stew you can’t bring yourself to eat. There’s a rock in your stomach that grows every time you think about the problem that’s been dumped unceremoniously at your feet. It’s making it hard to do anything. 

You sigh and let your spoon fall into the stew. You watch as a few droplets of brown broth are displaced, fly in the air, and hit the white lace tablecloth under your elbows. They’re wet, shiny at first (and they kind of remind you of tears), before they dry into the cloth, staining it a shade closer to the hue of the table. You lace your fingers together and lean your cheek against them as you turn to stare out the window at the dark sky. You can see lights in hives and shops twinkling in the city surrounding the castle, and it’s peaceful.

The tranquility seems off.

Usually, Karkat would be going off at you about something- anything at all! Ever since you two became matesprits, you haven’t spent one meal without him, and you’re frustrated that it’s suddenly changed. Why the fuck did Sollux have to screw up something that was perfect?!

In a sudden huff, you slam your hands down on the table, and your rings hitting the wood loudly make the action much more announced than you need it to be. You grab the side of your cape and swish it around yourself as you storm gracefully out of the room, the purple silk flaring out behind you as you slam open the door to the hall.

The teal blood guard standing by the door straightens, adjusting her grip on her shotgun suddenly, but you pay her no heed. Letting the door swing behind you without closing it, you turn and walk down the hall. You’re seeing red in the edges of your peripheral, and the urge to hold someone’s neck in your hands and wring it until they-

You stop and take a breath before you continue walking. You can’t be going to Karkat like that. You clench and unclench your hands as you walk, following the path mechanically- into the western left wing, two clusters down, to the right, third door on the opposite wall. You go in to open the door knob, and your shoulder hits the door- it’s locked.

You bang your fist on the door, much harder than you intended, and the noise scares even you. “Open up, Kar.”

“Go the hell away!” Karkat shrieks, voice hoarse, and your heart twists. 

This weakens you, and you slump against the door slightly, lowering your hand from where moments ago, you wanted to continue pounding on the door. “... you missed lunch.”

“I don’t fucking care.”

“Yeah, well I do, Vantas.” Your warble screws it up, but judging by the long period of silence from him, it does the trick. “I’m sorry about Sol, I really am, but-”

“If you were sorry about Sollux, you wouldn’t be yelling at me about it!”

“He’s not dead, dammit!” You punch the wall, and it hurts- oh god, it hurts. It hurts just about as bad as this rock in your stomach does. Your breath shakes as you lift your head to glare at the door. “This ain’t like last time. He’s still here.”

“... not with me,” he murmurs, and you can barely hear it, but your earfins flare angrily when you do.

“And now I have ta lose both’a you? Really?!”

You screech the words, you can feel yourself losing it, the tears welling in your eyes, the exploding anger in your chest, but he won’t answer. 

Why the fuck won’t he answer?!


	21. KARKAT; LOSE YOUR MIND

You stop caring. At least, you think you do.

It doesn’t take as long as you’d expected, but the depression sets in quick and you find it difficult to get up when the sun sets. You sit in your recuperacoon, keens pulled to your chest as you stare into the sopor that surrounds your body. People knock on your door constantly- different servants, guards, expressing a degree of concern that Eridan has forced on them, since you were introduced to this life and job. It makes it much easier to ignore them if you think about it like that- they’re just paid to care about you. It’s all about the money for them- isn’t that all it ever is?

When you do drag yourself out of your ‘coon to get something to eat, you avoid Eridan. You know he’ll be mad at you, and you don’t- no, you can’t- deal with a high blood rage, not right now. You’re barely coping with your own emotions. You ignore the pitiful looks people shoot you, and focus on your goal of getting food.

You stay at this low point for a long time. You have a couple of close calls with Eridan, and your heart starts pounding and you start sweating, but as much as you’re avoiding him, he seems to avoid you. You could’ve sworn maybe once or twice, when blending in with a group of workers, he’d been shooting you enraged looks, clenching his fists and tensing like he wanted to pounce at you, but when you blink and duck your head slightly, the look his gone and he’s heading off to his next meeting- probably a meeting he had to take over because you stopped showing up.

This thought just makes it worse. 

You’re constantly chewing yourself out for letting that happen to Sollux, for letting him scorch the side of his face (it looked so horrible, and you want to beat the thing that did it to him, but it’s you). He hates you for it, and you’ll never be able to live that down.

But now… now Eridan’s mad at you too. He probably hates you. You took everything he had and tore it down around his earfins, and now he’s left with nothing but a canvas sheet lying on the rails. 

You clench your hand around your fork and let your forehead fall onto your forearm, holding your breath as tears well in your eyes. You didn’t think you had it in you, but there you go again, sobbing because you’re just so damn pitiful, you can’t do anything to save yourself, and certainly not your…

Friends? Matesprits? You don’t know anymore.

You wish you knew. 

As time passes, you start seeing Sollux around the castle more. At first you aren’t sure if it’s really him, or if your emotions are making you imagine things, but when you bump into him in the hall on your way back from an unsatisfying meal, your suspicions are confirmed.

You keep your head down as you walk, arms folded and holding up a brooding facade so no one tries to approach you- not sure why they’d want to. You’re pretty sure everyone knows social interaction is the last thing you want.

You don’t look at who’s approaching until your much smaller shoulder hits their arm and they stumble. Reflexively, you look up, reaching out to help them, before stopping, hands outstretched towards…

Sollux looks at you from where he’s managed to stabilize himself on his own, bicolored eyes narrowing when he sees you. The side of his face is… better, and he’s walking- standing up straight, by himself, without any help. Your stomach twists. He didn’t even tell you he was walking again…?

You quickly retract your hands, holding them close to your chest, and you look away, hearing your heart pound in your ears. 

“S-sorry,” you stammer, voice off, and it sounds so out of character, but what are you supposed to do? Yell at him? You can’t possibly do that. He was justified in what he did, after all.

You turn and bolt down the hallway, keeping your head low. You can’t hear him calling your name past your pulse pounding in your ears. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *nervous laughter* fuck an upload schedule, amiright?


	22. ERIDAN: FUCK UP REAL BAD

You decide to visit him. 

Not Karkat, not again. That’s just going to make you mad. No, you go to visit Sollux, because you haven’t seen him and you want to know how he’s doing. 

A lowblood troll stops you at the entrance of the infirmary. “Who are you here to see, your highness?” She asks sweetly.

“Captor,” you state simply.

She frowns at you, and you frown back. “Sollux isn’t staying with us anymore,” she says, and your heart sinks, thinking he left without saying goodbye. “But he’s here for a check up with Equius, if you’d like to see him.”

Your earfins perk. “Yes, I’d like that.”

She nods with a smile and turns, walking down the hallway. You follow her carefully, stiffening as you stride past the rooms and ignore the sick and injured trolls around you. You don’t need to be focusing on them right now.

“You know what’s funny,” she starts, and you glance at her, hesitant to try striking up a conversation. 

“Hm?” You offer, focusing more on the trolls in the rooms you pass than the nurse.

“Karkat just came earlier to see Sollux.”

You turn your gaze towards the unknowing nurse, and you clench your fists at your sides, saying nothing as you grit your teeth. You turn the corner to where Sollux’s room is, and you can see Karkat standing outside the room with Equius, making erratic hand gestures.

You growl, fins flaring, and storm over, grabbing Karkat’s shoulder after pushing past the nurse. “Karkat.”

The mutant turns and looks up at you, eyes wide. “E-Eridan!”

“What the fuck are you doing here.”

“What are you doing here?” He retorts, jabbing a finger into your chest. 

Your hand snaps up and you grip his wrist in a tight grip. He gasps, reaching up to dig his nails into your fingers, whimpering. In your peripheral you can see Sollux getting up off the exam table, but this doesn’t break you out of the sudden trance your instincts have sent you into. Grabbing Karkat’s other wrist, you spin around and slam him against the wall. The air leaves his lungs in a sudden whoosh and he slumps against the wall, gasping and clutching his wrists. He stares up at you, tears in his eyes, and you want to stop (please, please just stop), but some animalistic part of you has taken over, and now-

Now you just want to kill.

“ED, what the fuck are you doing?!” Sollux cries, voice high pitched and shrill and his lisp heavy but unmistakable. You stop, and glance at him, and for a moment the red in your vision vanishes, and-

“You fucker!” Karkat screams, voice thick with unshed tears. 

Your muscles bunch again and suddenly whip around at breakneck speed and punch the wall above Karkat’s head. You glare down at him, and you can see fear dance in his vision.

“You’re just as bad as I am,” you snarl, and he flinches, because he knows you’re right. 

“This is crazy!” Sollux shouts, and you turn on him, but he stands his ground (he was always so stupid, so reckless).

“You did this.” You point a shaking finger at him accusingly. “This is all your fuckin’ fault, Captor.”

Sollux’s glare softens, and he looks confused.

“If you had jus’ forgiven Karkat, none’a this would be happening!”

He scowls and takes a daring step towards you, red and blue electricity sparking up between his horns and the tips of his fingers. “And you didn’t think to try fixing the situation yourself?”

“What was I supposed to do?” You cry, throwing your hands in the air. “Kar wasn’t listenin’ to me, and you-you off and fuckin’ disappeared-”

“I was right here-”

“What was I supposed to do? Go against what you’d asked? Damn, that would be a fantastic way of gainin’ your trust back, wouldn’t it?”

Sollux stops.

“You know, directly goin’ against your fuckin’ request just because’a my emotions.”

“Shut up…” The air is making the hair on the back of your neck stand on end, but you ignore it. 

“If you hadn’t just shut us out, then we wouldn’t be-”

“I said shut up!” Sollux roars, gripping his head and you reel suddenly because you could’ve sworn he wasn’t hunched over like that seconds ago.

You take several steps back towards the door, gripping the door frame as anger is replaced with fear. His horns spark, and the electricity breaks the light bulbs, sending sparks flying to the ground. It travels into the wiring, along it, to the walls, to the machinery hooked up on the walls, and in bursts of flame and smoke, everything explodes as Sollux overloads them with his psionics. 

You turn and grab Karkat, and he seems to want to resist but when flames explode up from the room, he’s willing to let you wrap your arms around him and run down the hallway. The machines seem to explode as you run down the hallway, following you, chasing you and-

The ceiling gives way in front of you and you pull Karkat closer to your chest as the entryway collapses, trapping you in. Karkat turns and buries his face in your chest as you sink to the floor, panic settling into your veins. 


	23. KARKAT: HOLD ON AND NEVER LET GO

When Eridan reaches for you, you panic, because oh god you don’t want his hands on you again, but when flames erupt from the room Sollux has disappeared to, you suddenly lunge forward and cling to Eridan. He picks up up and runs down the hallway, towards the entrance. You peer over his shoulder to see if Sollux is okay, but all you can see is smoke and panic swells in your chest, making unfallen tears cascade down your cheeks. 

Eridan skids to a stop and you turn to see the path blocked by fallen rubble. You turn and bury his face in his chest as he sinks to his knees, holding you close. You clutch his shirt in your fists, shaking violently, and you can feel him stroking your back as the building comes down around you two. 

The dust settles, and you hear Eridan cough as he adjusts his grip on you. You choke out a sob and hold onto his shirt tighter when he moves, and he quickly leans down to kiss the top of your head.

“I’m not goin’ anywhere,” he coos, sitting down and pulling you into his lap. You press against him, whimpering.

“I’m sorry for… f-for…” You try, but you can’t get the words out, panic and guilt making a knot in your chest.

“It’s okay, Kar…” He strokes your hair. “I shouldn’t’ve gotten so mad.”

You sniff and peer up at him. “Are we… gonna die in here?”

He looks up to glance around the small space you two are trapped in. “Unlikely,” he states. “We’re kinda first priority.”

You blink, before chuckling, and you wipe your eyes on one arm, still holding onto Eridan’s shirt with the other. “Right…”

He wraps his cape around you delicately and you settle against him, content to wait it out.

He rubs your back softly with a thumb. “Can’t say the same for Sol.”

You bolt upright- you hadn’t even thought about that. He’d been at the center of the explosion, hadn’t he? He’s probably much worse off than you are, and you can’t even go to search for him. 

“Oh god…” You murmur, covering your mouth with your hands in horror. “Oh fucking god…”

The sound of shifting rubble above you pulls Eridan to his feet, and you along with him, but you feel faint, replaying the explosion over and over in your head, wondering, hoping, praying that Sollux could and did make it out alive. He couldn’t be dead, not after everything that had-

“KK!”

You jerk your head up to see Sollux peering down at you, horns sparking softly as he moves rubble out of the way to get to you. Your knees give out from under you as you choke out a sob of relief and Eridan catches you, holding you to his chest.

“Are you alright Sol?” Eridan asks as he looks back up at the psionic.

“I should be asking you that.” Sollux says with a nod. “I’m fine. Here.” He reaches down to help Eridan lift you up out of the rubble. You grab Sollux’s hand and squeeze it tight, and he smiles softly at you as he pulls you out. You lurch forward and wrap him in a hug, and he wraps his arms around you, running his fingers through your hair carefully as you bury your face in his dusty shoulder.

“Uh… a little help here?” Eridan calls from the hole, and Sollux chuckles as he bends down to help him, you still latched on tightly to his side. 


	24. ERIDAN: PROTECT HIM

You crawl out of the hole carefully, holding onto Sollux’s hand, and he helps you sit down next to him and Karkat. You reach up and wipe dust off your face with the back of your hand. 

“I’m sorry for…” You start, looking down. You can feel Sollux’s gaze on you for several moments.

“It’s fine,” he states after a while, and you look at him as he shrugs it off.

“But I attacked you!”

“Yeah, but… you had a good reason to.” He runs his fingers through Karkat’s hair gently. “I was being kind of a dick.”

“Kind of?” Karkat challenges, and this just elicits a chuckle from Sollux. Your earfins flick. 

“Just a-” He’s cut off when a purple blood grabs the arm that isn’t wrapped around Karkat’s shoulder, and places a hand over Sollux’s mouth. He drags him across the rubble as he thrashes, and Karkat scrambles to his feet, letting out a noise of alarm. 

Sollux scratches at the purple blood’s arm and his horns spark before dampeners are slipped on and his eyes go wide with fear and panic. 

An animalistic growl rises from the depths of your throat and you run across the rubble, jumping up and hooking the purple blood’s neck in the crook of your elbow before slamming him down to the rocks. The trolls behind the purple blood- nurses and guards, mostly- gasp as an audible crack sounds, and blood pools under his head. 

Karkat runs forward and pulls Sollux out of the troll’s limp grip, removing the dampeners. He sits down with Sollux to try and pull him out of the trance they sent him into.

“What the living fuck?” You turn to the trolls gathered, and their eyes widen in alarm, staring at you as you stand over them, clenching and unclenching your fists.

“With all due respect, your highness, he did just destroy part of the castle, and nearly put you at risk. He’s a dangerous weapon- he shouldn’t be roaming around freely like this,” says the nurse from before, and this just makes your anger worse.

“How dare you say that about my matesprit.”

The nurse blinks and suddenly takes a step back, looking panicked. “S-sorry, I-I didn’t think-”

“Get out of here,” you order, gesturing to where the rest of the castle is, seething. “All of you. Now.”

Realizing it’s a command and not a soft suggestion, the trolls turn and scramble over to where lowblood workers are working to clear the rubble out. You turn and crouch next to Karkat and Sollux. The psionic looks up at you with a bit of a strained smile.

“You didn’t hafta lie to them like that…” He murmurs.

You lean forward and place a kiss on his dust coated lips. He hesitates before kissing back, unpracticed but careful. 

You pull away and cup his cheek in your hand carefully. “Wasn’t lying.”

Karkat leans in and places a kiss to Sollux’s cheek, lacing his fingers between the mustard blood’s. You sit down next to them, taking Sollux’s other hand.

And for a split second, you three are kids again, happy and content with what the universe has dealt you. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it's done! There are more than just a few things I wish I had done differently, but I think it ended well, so I'll count that as a win ^^


End file.
